Chapter 69

The corpse of this demonic beast was still relatively fresh, with not much of it eaten by scavenging demonic beasts. It seemed they were just about to eat when they were discovered, and the noise scared them away.

Everyone looked at the meat, guessing it had been dead for at most one night. Seeing how they looked at the demonic beast, Lu Xiaodeng felt they seemed very hungry, their gazes too sharp.

"Why don't we each take out some magical artifacts and send them out to search? Perhaps the evil cultivator hasn't gone far. If we rashly approach and alarm him, he might not return. Our goal this time is not to kill him but to find their lair," Lu Yaohang suggested to everyone.

Everyone immediately agreed. On the journey, they had been flying all the time, and they hadn't even been used to search for people. Everyone was a bit bored. Upon hearing that they would scatter to search, they all took out their best items, a wide variety of things.

All kinds of puppet birds and beasts, spirit pets, and magical artifacts, each person took out one. Lu Yaohang's was a crystal-clear crystal butterfly, and even Lu Dan, who rarely went out, had a small yellow-green bird. Only Lu Xiaodeng had nothing.

She watched them carefully, suddenly feeling a bit strange, wondering why she didn't even have a bird feather.

Everyone infused their items with spiritual energy or divine sense, and with a flick of their hands, they all flew into the air, scattering in all directions. Then they waited on the spot, both sides secretly exerting effort, hoping to be the first to find the evil cultivator.

No one knew how far Ge Pi had run. Lu Xiaodeng sat on a rock, propping her chin up, waiting patiently. Suddenly, a Cloud Sword Sect disciple said, "We found him. There's a late-stage Qi Cultivation cultivator, who looks about seventeen or eighteen. He doesn't look good, seems to have been traveling for a long time, and isn't wearing any clothes with a sect emblem."

Lu Xiaodeng quickly said, "That's him. Although he looks weak, he's the personal disciple of the Ghost Spirit Sect's sect master."

No one had heard of the Ghost Spirit Sect, but the name didn't sound good. However, someone from the Void Sect stood up and asked, "Didn't you say the one who escaped was a female evil cultivator? Why is it a male now?"

"Hmm?" Lu Xiaodeng blinked her eyes and then said, "You know the other party is an evil cultivator, so their cultivation techniques must be strange. It shouldn't be hard for a woman to turn into a man. Besides, our goal is to find the evil cultivators' lair, not to care about their gender. As long as they can lead the way, it's fine."

"If it's not the female evil cultivator, it means the person he let go wasn't to cover his tracks. His mistake can't be forgiven just because of this; these are two different things," the Void Sect cultivator insisted, clearly having been asked to do so by someone.

Lu Xiaodeng looked at him deeply and said, word by word, "I've already said he might be the female evil cultivator. Don't you believe me?"

"Why should we believe you? This might all be a trap to lure us here to kill us," the cultivator said, clearly determined to pin the blame on Lu Dan.

At this moment, a cold aura rushed out from behind Lu Xiaodeng. Lu Yaohang narrowed his eyes and stared at him, saying, "Now we need to find the evil cultivators' lair first. If your Void Sect keeps causing trouble, I'll kill all of you first. I'll clean up the righteous path for you. If the Void Sect can't do it, I'll help."

"Such arrogance, does your Cloud Sword Sect want to dominate Yun Dan State?" The Void Sect cultivator glared, everyone's strength was about the same, so who was afraid of whom?

Seeing everyone about to draw their swords, Lu Xiaodeng said in a delicate voice, "Who said a man can't dress up as a woman? I can easily turn into a beautiful woman right now."

Everyone looked up and froze, completely at a loss for words.

Lu Xiaodeng's chest suddenly changed, a stark contrast to her previously unremarkable appearance. In the blink of an eye, it had grown so much. She even posed in a seductive manner, batting her eyes, "You all saw it with your own eyes, right? It only takes a moment to turn into a woman."

Lu Yaohang asked in confusion, "Xiaodeng, what are you doing? What did you put in there?"

"I picked up two stones and put them in my clothes. I wanted to put two fruits, but the wild fruits around here are only this big," Lu Xiaodeng said regretfully, holding out her hand with five small green wild fruits, which were useless.

"Stones?" Everyone looked at her with strange eyes. Even without cultivation, she was a second-rate sect's medicine child. Such an identity, doing such a thing, would make the Cloud Sword Sect lose face. Most importantly, she was a woman, so what was the point of putting stones in her chest?

Lu Xiaodeng felt inside her clothes and took out two fist-sized stones, angrily throwing them on the ground, "This thing is too heavy and too hard, it's not useful at all."

Everyone didn't know what to say. Even the youngest person here was over eighteen, and even an eight-year-old child couldn't understand her behavior, let alone agree with it.

Then, she glanced at the cultivator who had spoken and asked in a strange tone, "How about it? Do you believe me now? You can dress up as a woman with stones, let alone with magic. If you don't believe me, try it yourself."

"No need, I temporarily believe you," the Void Sect cultivator quickly refused. Whether he tried or not, being entangled by such a person would make him a laughingstock. Even if he wanted to kill her for his face, he couldn't do it with others around.

"Hmph, you only believe me when I give you an example. How can you be so suspicious? It will lead to heart demons," Lu Xiaodeng huffed. These stubborn people wouldn't stop if she didn't prove it with facts.

Lu Yaohang was about to act, but her antics made him laugh and cry. He couldn't kill her. He could only glare at her and coldly say, "Let's go. First, we need to confirm the evil cultivators' location. If you have any more doubts, we'll discuss them then."

The others also felt that the big picture should be prioritized. This time, finding the lair would be a great achievement. Arguing about gender was pointless; it wasn't like they were going to marry him. What difference did it make if he was a man or a woman?

The Void Sect cultivator was even despised by his own side. It was clear he was provoking on purpose for Zhang He, regardless of whether it would ruin the tracking. Such reckless behavior, disregarding everyone's interests, would make it hard to be good fellow disciples in the future.

Feeling the hostility from everyone, he had to shut up and glare in silence. Everyone then recalled their items and quietly and quickly headed to where the evil cultivator was found.

Sure enough, after chasing for three hours, they finally saw Ge Pi in the distance, trying to extract the soul of a demonic beast to make it a mount. However, his luck was bad this time; the demonic beast was too skinny to be a mount.

But to attract larger but weaker demonic beasts, he had to kill it while injured and use its blood and flesh as bait. Seeing his pitiful state, Lu Xiaodeng felt sympathy for him. How could he be so stupid?

Not being at the Foundation Establishment stage and not being able to fly was one thing, but how could he not even have a flying magical artifact? As a personal disciple, shouldn't he be richer?

Ge Pi was even more frustrated. Because he was a favored personal disciple, he didn't have a flying magical artifact. He looked down on low-grade ones, and high-grade ones were beyond his control. Plus, he usually traveled with the sect's dedicated flying spirit artifacts, so he never thought to get a cheap one for self-defense.

Now, alone and in exile, he realized that the most important thing about spirit artifacts was their practicality. After this, he would definitely get a fast one to avoid the misery of walking, which was exhausting.

He cursed and finally killed the small demonic beast, dragging it along as he continued forward. While trying to find a suitable mount, he didn't forget to hurry, hoping to return to his sect and report to his master as soon as possible.

"This one is a personal disciple, I don't know how to describe it. He seems very stupid," a hidden cultivator muttered. Tracking such an evil cultivator was utterly unfulfilling. They could easily kill him with one strike.

To help him find a mount and return to his sect faster, they even found a suitable demonic beast for him, beat it up, and led it over, finding an opportunity to release it to meet this stupid evil cultivator.

Seeing him struggle to extract the soul of the demonic beast and ride it, looking ugly as he galloped forward, the cultivators finally breathed a sigh of relief.

But at that moment, Lu Xiaodeng said, "You actually helped the evil cultivator get a mount to escape. You must be spies."

The Cloud Sword Sect people knew what she was up to and didn't say a word. The Void Sect people glared at her with hatred, suppressing the urge to kill her, thinking it wasn't worth arguing with such a commoner.

The subsequent tracking went smoothly. Even when there were dangers on the way, Lu Xiaodeng and the others would clear them in advance. Even when a bridge was broken, it would be repaired for Ge Pi to use, making the journey much faster.

He himself felt it was much smoother than before, with no dangers on the way and unusually good luck.

Five days later, when he arrived at the foot of a mountain, he threw away the nearly exhausted demonic beast, took out a clean set of clothes from his sleeve, and walked up the stone steps through the mountain gate. The trackers realized this was the evil cultivators' lair.

However, this was not a sinister sect of evil cultivators but a third-rate small sect in Ling Miao State that specialized in taming beasts. Although small, the sect mainly sold spirit pets, providing very obedient ones, so many sects came to trade.

Not far from this Tian Ling Sect was a city mainly selling spirit pet mounts, which was quite famous in the Nine States.

Seeing the evil cultivator put on Tian Ling Sect clothes and walk in directly, everyone couldn't help but suspect: Could this sect actually be an evil sect disguised as a spirit pet sect?